Luther — Geology of the Salt District. 



181 



Other missionaries make mention of the salt springs, and before the 

 English took possession of the country, the Indians had learned to manufac- 

 ture salt in considerable quantities which they carried to the French settle- 

 ments at the north and to Albany. They excavated a large hole in the marshy 

 ground on the eastern side of the swamp at the head of Onondaga lake, and 

 this was always full to the level of the ground with salt water that came up 

 from the bottom. 



This spring was in the rear of the old Salina pump-house, in what is now 

 the first ward of the city of Syracuse. 



In 1789, Asa Danforth and Comfort Tyler, immigrants to Onondaga 

 county, from Massachusetts, made thirteen bushels of salt in twelve hours? 

 using a kettle suspended from a pole supported by two crotched sticks. 



This was the beginning of the manufacture of salt by the white 

 settlers. 



The next year the business was greatly increased and a settlement of salt 

 makers was made on the bluff above the spring. 



In 1790, pumps superseded the use of pails for taking the brine from the 

 spring, and in 1793 the first caldron kettle set in an arch was brought into use. 



In 1798, a new well thirty feet deep was dug a little northwest of the 

 first one, and a building the first built for this purpose, large enough to con- 

 tain eight arches, in each of which four kettles were set, was erected by the 

 Federal Company. 



In 1793, the manufacture was begun at Geddes on the west side of the 

 swamp, and also at Liverpool on the north side of the lake. The first wells 

 on the southern border of the swamp, known as the Syracuse wells, were sunk 

 in 1830. Brine was raised from the wells by horse power in 1805, and soon 

 after by water power derived from several small streams in the vicinity. The 

 first works for the manufacture of salt by solar evaporation were constructed 

 in 1841. 



In 1797, a tract of land surrounding the head of Onondaga lake and con- 

 taining 15,000 acres was laid out and set apart by the state for the location of 

 salt works. It was called the Onondaga Salt Springs Reservation. All but 

 about 700 acres has since been sold. 



In 1826, the state acquired by purchase extensive pump works driven by 

 power supplied by waste water from the Erie canal, and assumed control of 

 the brine, supplying all manufacturers with any desired quantity for a stated 

 sum for each bushel of salt made. 



